The biting wind seems to find the smallest crack in your several layers of clothing to nip at exposed flesh, your hands feel frost-bitten even though you’ve got your thickest gloves on, and the tip of your nose is so cold that you can no longer feel it. Yet there on a fence post directly in front of you, equally exposed to the wintery weather, is a chirpy wee Robin, singing its heart out, seemingly oblivious to the chill. How does it do it?

Well, the answer is in the fluffing up of its feathers. If you’ve ever slept under a down- or feather-filled duvet, you’ll know how incredibly warm feathers can be, and that’s especially true for our wee Robin. You see, feathers are a brilliant form of insulation material – feathers trap air close to the bird’s body so, in winter, they trap the warmth of the bird’s body heat. The more fluffed up the feathers are, the more warm air they trap, the more cosy is our little Robin.

This wonderful old word doesn’t appear in the Oxford Dictionary online, presumably because they’ve replaced it with something trendy like ‘mansplain’ and ‘youthquake’. Well, call me old-fashioned but I much prefer something old and meaningful to these modern inventions.

So, then, apricity (thanks to the Merriam-Webster) ‘appears to have entered our language in 1623, when Henry Cockeram recorded (or possibly invented) it for his dictionary The English Dictionary; or, An Interpreter of Hard English Words.’ And it means ‘the warmth of the sun in winter’, something even this gull was seen, last week, to enjoy and appreciate.

Catkin: According to the Oxford Dictionary, a late 16th century noun, from the now-obsolete Dutch word katteken for kitten (how sweet is that?), meaning a downy, hanging flowering spike of trees such as willow and hazel, pollinated by the wind.

And now is the time to see catkins, at least where I live in south Wales. I took these photos of male Hazel catkins (Corylus avellana) earlier this week, the gusty breeze helping to spread their yellow pollen, hopefully to fall on the tiny pink female flowers of neighbouring trees, there to develop into fruit and later nuts.

It was about time I had another go at WildflowerHour’s current challenge: ‘our weekly winter challenge is #thewinter10 which is to find ten different wild flowers in bloom each week. Once you’ve found them, work out what they are, and post them for the rest of us to see.’

So, on Thursday’s walk, though I was really looking for birds, I also remembered to cast my eyes downwards for flowers. And, on one relatively short stretch along the western edge of Cardiff Bay, I found my ten: Creeping buttercup (I think). a Dandelion species, Nipplewort, Petty spurge, possibly Common mouse-ear, Red dead nettle, Groundsel, Sweet meadow grass, Gorse, and Red clover.

I don’t have a garden but that doesn’t mean I can’t take part in this weekend’s RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch ’cause you can also do your count in your local park.

All it takes is an hour of your time on either the 27th, 28th or 29th of January, a pen and paper so you can make a note of the birds you see, and maybe a cup of tea and a couple of biscuits to keep you going.

The specific list of birds to be counted is Blackbird, Blue tit, Chaffinch, Coal tit, Collared dove, Dunnock, Goldfinch, Great tit, House sparrow, Greenfinch, Long-tailed tit, Magpie, Robin, Starling and Woodpigeon. Of course, the RSPB is also interested in any other birds you see in your garden (not flying overhead), and any other creatures that have visited your garden in the past year – a mole or a hedgehog or maybe a fox?

Here’s the link so all you Brits out there can check the details and get involved.

Back in November, I thought I’d found my first Yellow-legged gull (Larus michahellis) – and it still might have been – though I’m really not convinced about it. But, this gull, the one pictured here, is absolutely, one-hundred-percent definitely a Yellow-legged gull … even though its legs are not yellow. Have I not written previously that gulls are tricksy?!

As you might guess from looking at it, this is not an adult gull. I’m reliably informed, by the expert birding friend who identified it for me, that this gull is in its second winter. My bird guide book tells me these gulls take four years to reach adult plumage so it’s half way there. Its age is the reason its legs are not yet yellow.

One of the main keys to its identification is the colour of the feathers on its back: Yellow-legged gulls are about mid way between the light grey of Herring gulls and the darker grey of Lesser black-backeds. The two photos above show my Yellow-legged gull, on the left, and, on the right, a Herring gull of the same age. I can see the difference in the feather colour and, to my eye, the shape of the head and bill look slightly different but I’m not sure I’d be confident of IDing one of these gulls without expert help.

Running from Saturday 30 December until today, Tuesday 2 January, this was the BSBI’s (Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland) seventh annual plant hunt event. The idea is to spend three hours on one of those days (or every day, if you’re as keen as Hoary mustard), in one location (or several, if you like to roam like Ivy), trying to find as many wild or naturalised plants that are flowering as you can. You then share your finds on social media and, most importantly, you also need to send your records in to the BSBI team so they can analyse the results (full details on their website here).

On the last day of 2017 I took myself off on a wander around Penarth township and marina – basically, within the square kilometre that is ST1872 – and was delighted to find 15 different wild plants in bloom. The Field scabious was a particular highlight!

Back in early November I blogged about Wildflower Hour’s winter challenge encouraging us all to try to find ten wildflowers still in bloom each week of winter. Well, I’ve been on holiday in Somerset over Christmas and, when my friend Sarah and I were out walking at Ham Hill on Christmas Eve, we took the challenge and were amazed to find not ten but seventeen wildflowers in bloom. Here (with apologies for the blurry pics – the wind was howling – and the lack of accurate names – I didn’t take my guide book on holiday) they are: ragwort, red campion, white dead nettle, hogweed, bramble, dog’s mercury, possible one of the Hawk’s-beard family, chamomile, cow parsley, ivy, a species of thistle and another of grass, wild parsnip, a variety of speedwell, the ever-reliable daisy, yarrow, and the equally reliable gorse.

p.s. Ham Hill is a fascinating place to explore if you’re ever in that vicinity and I’m already planning another walk there when I visit Sarah again in the summer.

It was fairly quiet bird-wise on my first monthly visit to Cosmeston Lakes Country Park on 2 December, though there were still good numbers of the various thrushes (Mistle, Song, Redwing and Blackbird) around. A Great spotted woodpecker in the west paddock was a nice surprise – I initially thought it a Jay when I saw that peachy belly. The Tufted ducks amused, as always, and, while I sat watching them, the Brown rat I’d seen before at that particular spot came snuffling around for food. There were two more rats foraging by the boardwalk near the café.

It’s a thrush takeover! On 6 December, I’d scarcely left the house to walk to Cosmeston than I was spotting Redwings, Song thrushes, and a Mistle thrush, plus Goldfinches and Chaffinches, in the trees just across the road. And when I got to Cosmeston it was more – much more – of the same, plus the first Fieldfares I’ve seen there. In Cogan Wood, the little birds were hungry so I shared my flapjack with them – there were even two Nuthatches and a half dozen Long-tailed tits picking up the crumbs on the ground. And the prize for the most colourful birds goes to the pair of Bullfinch that were munching on hogweed seeds.

On 15 December, I finally got a reasonable, though not brilliant photo of a Fieldfare – they are very skittish so it’s hard to get close to them. I finally found a spot behind the berry trees they were feasting in, then just had to be patient and wait for one to pop up to the top of a tree.

In Cogan Wood, one of the resident Marsh tits popped out to say hello – first sighting I’ve had since earlier in the year as they seem to disappear during the breeding season. And there was a Stonechat at the top end of the west paddock. There had been a pair of Stonechats in that area in the autumn but they seemed to have disappeared when the park staff mowed that field, so it was good to see one there again.

Something else happened at Cossie during this visit, something that’s never happened to me before. A squirrel climbed up my leg, not once but four times – the first time it grabbed my finger, the second time it touched my camera. I didn’t have food but it obviously thought I did. It certainly made me laugh.

About me

I'm a writer and photographer; researcher and blogger; fungi forayer and bird watcher; countryside rambler and city strider; tree lover and cat person; volunteer and traveller.
And I am living proof that Kiwis really can fly.